Waiting for the Fall
by cappuccinogirlxx
Summary: Your standard Rayna/Deacon, Rayna/Liam, songs-about-Rayna affair. Set post episode 14, but it seems to work right through episode 17 so far. THE LEAVES WERE TURNING from red to muddy brown, and neighborhood kids were walking home from school. Sun-soaked concerts were a fading memory, and for the first time in a long while, she had no album to record or promote...


**Waiting for the Fall **

A Nashville fan fiction

By Cappuccino Girl

Notes: Written post episode 14 [Dear Brother]. In case you feel the need to track down the song quoted toward the end of story below, it's called 'I'm Sober Now' and is by the brilliant Danny O'Keefe. If you like it, I recommend supporting the artist by buying it from your favourite digital music provider. Or get it on vinyl. It really does sound better, I promise.

THE LEAVES WERE TURNING from red to muddy brown, and neighborhood kids were walking home from school. Sun-soaked concerts were a fading memory, and for the first time in a long while, she had no album to record or promote. Inside her house, the mess of the last intervention was still on the kitchen floor. At the fifth try, she really should have managed it better, choreographed the perfect last straw. Instead, it was one week later and tiny shards of broken china still crunched on the tiles. There in the living room, his notes were strewn on the piano, whiskey-stained and torn, songs she'll never have the heart to record, royalty checks he won't be able to drink or snort up his nose.

Last night, she dreamed that she was seven years old. Her hair was in pigtails, and she twirled around the porch in her faded blue summer dress while the summer sun scorched the lawn. Too dizzy to keep on spinning, she sat down cross-legged on the floor and asked her mom about the sparkle on her finger and whether it was okay to play it safe sometimes. The garbage truck woke her as her mom whispered, "It's time to move on", and once she'd finished throwing up, the words still rang in her ears.

She's certain Teddy is one of the good guys. He told her he'd fallen in love with her on their first date, that hideously awkward blind date her sister sent her on the day after intervention number four. She spent the evening pushing her food around her plate and drinking one too many glasses of wine while he pretended not to notice that everyone in the restaurant knew who she was. He said he'd seen her on TV a few times, televised concerts and presenting at the CMAs, and she laughed uncomfortably and suggested he be her date next time. When he kissed her on the front steps of her house and she asked him in, he said no. But then Deacon got out of rehab, and there was a concert and a pathetic good-bye fuck in the back of the bus, and when Teddy put that diamond ring on her finger while she made breakfast one morning, it was her turn to say no. There were tour dates to keep and interviews to give, and she was an expert at this part of the superstar game. Teddy stayed home and mailed blank "Greetings from Music City USA" postcards to her hotels.

Three weeks ago, backstage in Austin, Deacon pretended not to be strung out on liquor and Vicodin, while she hoped in vain for someone to hold back her hair while she puked. And then there he was, a prep-school vision, all tall, dark and squeaky-clean at her dressing room door.

Teddy picked up her pregnancy test from the dresser and said, "Shouldn't you be keeping this in a safer place?"

She shook her head, and tried to smile and whispered, "I don't think its yours." And instead of yelling or throwing beer bottles around, he held onto her wrist like he was crushing the infidelity out of her, and smeared her running mascara across her face.

As she gazes out the living room window from her place on the piano stool onto her neglected front yard, she notices an abandoned beer can rolling across the lawn. In a few weeks time, she'll be putting on a white dress and her dad will walk her down the aisle of her fairytale wedding, while Deacon asks God for the serenity to accept that which he can't change. For now, she should probably clean the remaining glass and china up from the kitchen floor.

Rayna absentmindedly presses a few keys, and they sound like the beginning of a song she once used to sing. She quickly stops playing, her eyes catching sight of the yellow sheets full of drunkenly scrawled lyrics again. Hastily, she sweeps them together and crumples them up into a ball.

'_God grand me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…_' Perhaps she'll silently pray it with him when she says 'I do.'

* * *

THE TOKEN FELL out of the pocket of his jeans, a silent clink on the stage when he leaned down to pick up his electric guitar. The hometown crowd was rowdy, yet somehow, between the wolf-whistles and applause and 'we love you Raynas', that dull brass glistening in the stage lights seemed to silence all the noise. She saw it fall from the corner of her eye, noticed him not noticing it. For a second, she considered walking over and handing it to him, but there was only one encore number left, and she didn't think anyone would kick it into the audience by mistake, so she left it there while they rocked their way through _Already Gone _and took their final bow.

After she waved goodbye and blew a kiss into the screaming crowd, she knelt down and picked it up. It was remarkably heavy, more like an old subway token than a quarter. She made a fist around it, and followed him down the steps backstage.

Later, when the night was turning into morning and the after-show party had started clearing out, she observed him charm the backing singers with tales of playing guitar with Bonnie Raitt while he tossed back diet soda like it was going out of style. When they'd left, she sauntered over to him, still gussied up in sparkles, and said, "Crossroads rehearsal tomorrow. Jackson Browne, baby!" and watched a smile flash across his face.

Deacon grinned, a boyish grin she hadn't seen in many months, and she laced her fingers between his while they discussed logistics and how she promised not to make a complete ass of herself.

"We're going to Jackson!" she exclaimed, pulling his hand, still held firmly in hers, around in excitement.

"_We've been talkin' about Jackson ever since the fire went out_," he half-sang.

"Tomorrow. You. Me. _Running on Empty_."

"I've been telling you to make that your encore for years."

"Since our second tour," she corrected him. " But I know it's only 'cause you want to show off playing that guitar solo."

He feigned innocence and squeezed her hand, his fingers rubbing against her wedding and engagement rings. "You're going to be insufferable for the next couple of days, aren't you?"

Rayna shrugged, tossed her hair behind her back with all the exaggeration of a shampoo commercial, fixed her eyes on his and told him in mock-sincerity, "I am a stone-cold pro."

"Bullshit," he retorted, but her excitement was infectious, and he couldn't quite blame it on the obscene quantity of caffeine that coursed through his veins or the three Tom Collins he saw her drink earlier. It reminded him of when she signed her first record deal and she danced around that ratty apartment, waving the contract about above her head like the Superbowl trophy all those years ago. Sometimes he wonders where all that happiness went. He asked his therapist about it once, asked whether Teddy secretly bottles it and saves it up for a rainy day. His therapist only scribbled something on his notepad before suggesting that perhaps he merely imagined it in his warm, substance-abuse haze.

They were both suddenly aware of how they had been staring at each other, and it made her blush. She let go of his hand and reached into her pocket, held his token in the palm of her hand. Seeing it there, she noticed that it said 'five years'.

"You dropped it. When you changed guitars."

He hastily took it from her, put it back into his jeans for safety.

They both looked awkwardly at the floor for a moment before Deacon finished the last gulp of his soda.

"We should probably go. It's nearly three."

"Rehearsal at noon tomorrow- today. You need a wake-up call?"

Deacon shook his head and pointed to his glass. "I'm good these days."

She picked up her purse from the table she had shoved it under.

"All set?"

She cast her eyes across the room once last time, checking she didn't leave anything behind, then nodded.

"See you tomorrow."

"At noon." She leant over and kissed him on the cheek, and whispered, "I'm proud of you," in his ear.

If he heard it, he didn't acknowledge it, and they both parted ways at the door.

* * *

HER PHONE'S STILL ON SILENT, and everybody's left. The kids are at her sister's for the night, and, for once, there's no reason to rush home. An unfamiliar quiet has fallen over Liam's painfully stylish studio. Rayna's collapsed on the battered leather couch, glass of whiskey in hand. If it carries on like this, the album's going to be co-sponsored by Red Bull and Jim Beam. Liam's perched on the hood of the wooden racecar in the middle of the room.

"What the hell even is that thing?" she asks, kicking one of the wheels with her shoe.

"Jon Bon Jovi sent it as a thank you when he won best album at the Junos one year."

"Seriously?"

"No. I found it at a yard sale."

"Really? I just guessed you did some serious drunk internet shopping. All I ever get is a $600 charge and show clothes my assistant has to send back. Now a race car…"

"It's not an actual race car."

"That's the point. Who on God's green earth buys a wooden race car?"

"It's stupid, right?"

"Only if you think it is."

From where he's sitting, maybe it's the light, but her tiredness shows. He can't exactly tell her that. She's still stunning in spite of it, and every time he sees her walk into the studio, all effortless cool, he wonders what the hell he was thinking when he initially blew her off.

"The stuff we recorded today sounded good," he says instead, but he doesn't get the reaction he hoped for. Rayna brushes the compliment aside with a flick of her hand.

"You know this is my first album without Deacon playing guitar, right?" she eventually asks him, gazing into her glass.

"I remember."

"I just… I'm… I'm having my doubts, I guess. You know, what if everyone hates it? Are we creating the biggest bomb of my career? All the other what ifs that cruise around my brain in the middle of the night when I can't sleep."

"Would you care?"

"Sure I would. Don't you?"

"Well, your headlines can't get any worse," Liam remarks, which garners him a somewhat expected scowl from Rayna.

"I knew I had a reason for firing you."

"You're gonna fire me at least three more times before we're done here."

Rayna slides deeper into the corner of the couch. "I am all in," she insists. "This is it for me. The girls need to know the world doesn't all go to hell when you get to my age."

Liam watches in silence as she takes another sip of her whiskey and stares up at the ceiling. Curled up safely in her space on the couch and playing with the frayed hem of her sweater, she seems a fraction of the size that she is on stage. He knows her life has stopped making sense to her a long time ago. She's told him so numerous times herself. Reaching across to the table, he picks up his iPad and settles down next to her. With a few clicks, he opens a video of CMT Crossroads on YouTube and places it in her lap.

A bemused expression flashes across her face, and she glances over at him expecting some kind of clue to explain what the heck she's supposed to be seeing on the screen.

"That's the best thing you've ever done," Liam tells her, pointing his finger for emphasis.

She laughs, and it's laced with exhaustion. "Because it's Jackson Browne?"

"Yes." He pauses a beat to gage her reaction. "_No."_

"It's a karaoke staple," she protests with an exaggerated eye-roll. "Any pop-tart could do it. Any pop-tart probably has."

Liam shakes his head in despair, snatches the iPad from her mid-song and punches the next title into the search box.

"If you're gonna find _The Hard Way_ from the Women of Country special now," she warns him, "then yes, that is the best thing I've ever done, because basically every woman in the history of country music who was still alive was on the same stage, but no, I'm not going to put myself through watching early 90s hair, not even for you."

He ignores her drunken rambling, clicks the play button, and passes it back to her. It's still the Crossroads thing, but this time they're both singing _The Road_. She won't admit it, but it is more than just okay karaoke.

"That," he sighs. "Right there. See? What happened to that woman? She wouldn't give a damn about TMZ or if her record bombed. She's too busy taking that song places even Jackson Browne wouldn't dare to go."

Rayna chugs the rest of her drink; watching yourself is never easy, especially when it's nearly ten-year-old footage, and you want to retroactively change everything, and not just your choice of wardrobe. Dear God, what was she thinking? No wonder the tabloids are having a field day.

"You're hotter now."

"How did you know I was—I was not thinking about how young I look. I was thinking about…" Rayna scowls. "Oh fuck you."

"She swears!" Liam cheers with delight, making a comical fist-pump in the air.

"Get enough liquor in me and I'll do a whole lot more than that," she teases him. "But you already know that too."

She brushes her hair out of her face, and looks straight at him, her expression quickly changing from flirty to dead-serious. "It _was_ an awesome show. And that song has…" But her voice trails off, and she's staring right past him into space again, caught up in her alternate universe of might-have-beens. Over there, the light's a little softer, and her brow isn't quite so furrowed.

Liam puts his arm around her, and pulls her a little closer to him. The affection shocks her uncomfortably back into reality. Too tired to complain, she rests her head on his shoulder and fiddles with the pocket on his t-shirt. It surprises her how familiar it feels, how easily she could probably settle for this for a while.

"I wanted to record a duets album after that whole thing," she confesses, "but it never got off the ground. Management- they were cautious, and I'd already started working on another album, so it fell through, like most of my—" She pauses for a moment while a police car wails by outside, its lights painting blue and red patterns on the walls. "It's not like I could have just called up Bruce Springsteen and been all 'Hey. Want to record a song with me?' I mean, look at your reaction when I showed up at your studio door." Rayna traces the outline of his hand with her finger before carefully unwinding herself from his arm.

"Did you record anything?"

"One song with John Hiatt, _Temporary Strangers_. It was the last track on 'A Picture's Worth a Thousand Tears'."

Liam shakes his head. "Never heard it. You like your pretty rock stars don't you?"

She knows where he's going, and the alcohol almost makes it seem like a good idea. "I've been in this business long enough to know the rules," she teases him before taking a swig from his glass.

"And for those not yet acquainted with the Rayna rules of showbiz these are…?

"It's okay to date the musicians…but _never_ the management."

Liam nods and takes his whiskey glass back out of her hand. "So I'm in with a shot, then?"

"You're producing, so, technically, you're management."

"I'm also a singer and a guitar player and a songwriter," he reminds her, punctuating each of his skills with a wave of his drink, and a little of it spills over the rim of the glass.

Rayna leans toward him and wipes the drop up with her finger. "It's killing you that I won't sleep with you, isn't it?" she grins.

"Kinda."

"Hurts your little rocker boy ego."

He playfully punches her arm before shoving her hair up over her head and into her face, which sends her into a fit of drunken giggles. "And you're such a saint," he admonishes her. "That bottle was full when you got here!"

"You forget I dated an alcoholic for many years."

"And you?" Liam wonders aloud. "Did you pick up any issues along the way?"

"Me? No. I guess I don't have the addictive gene or something. But I'm sure I can count on US Weekly having me in rehab for a prescription drug problem by the end of the month."

Liam leans back into the couch and puts his feet on the coffee table. "I've got some weed in a tin over there," he says, turning his head in the direction of the soundboard, "and I haven't deleted your drunk singing video either, so we could get the rumor mill started pretty good."

"You're such a gentleman."

She sits there, twirling her hair around her finger, her bangles clinking on her wrist, and he can't quite tell if the expression on her face is daring him to kiss her.

He shoves his guitar case further under the table with his foot. "You're going to crash my concert at the Exit/In next week, right?"

"Boy, I haven't done that in a while," she sighs wistfully. "Your audience would probably boo me off stage."

"Come on. Mix it up a bit," he urges her and nudges her side a little for emphasis. "All the guys are gonna be there. I'll leave you a row of tequila shots backstage and we can do a bad cover of _It's Only Rock n' Roll_."

"You have got to be kidding me! There isn't enough tequila in the world to make that seem like a good idea."

"Or _Poor Poor Pitiful Me_ if you're still feeling this pathetic?"

"You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

"As you pointed out earlier, I _am_ the management."

She bursts out laughing and jokingly smacks his knee. "Asshole."

Liam can only shrug his shoulders and take her scolding as a compliment. He is totally, unashamedly, enamored with her. He'd surely kiss her now if she weren't so drunk. Instead, he looks down at his empty glass and hers on the table, and reaches across her legs to pick up what's left of the whiskey. "One more. For the road," he convinces her as he tops up both of their glasses.

Rayna grasps the top of her head in mock exasperation. "So, Mister Producer," she teases with a carefully raised eyebrow. "What are we drinking to this time?"

"To telephoto lenses?"

"And messy divorces."

Liam snaps his fingers in agreement. "That should be the title of our album. We'll put a swear word in somewhere and get you an 'explicit' sticker for added street-cred."

"Cheers." Their glasses clink.

She didn't want to stay this long, had plans to be home before ten, and now the evening's long gone, and she's aware that she's more contented than she has been in a long while. Perhaps it's the recklessness of Liam's youth wearing off on her. She likes the way he looks at her the way Deacon used to, likes getting drunk with him and talking shit about music like they used to, back when she and Deacon were young, before he had a drinking problem. Before she found out about the pills and blow. She rests her head on Liam's shoulder, wishing it weren't quite this easy, afraid of what she might uncover if she stays around too long.

"It'll be fine, you know?" he whispers into her hair.

"What will?"

"You." He reaches behind the couch and passes her a throw. "Sleep here tonight?"

She nods.

"Come here." He opens his arms and she gratefully accepts his hug. It's generous and comforting, and while she knows he'd sleep with her the moment she so much as opened the top button of her jeans, there's no ulterior motive in his actions right now, which only serves to endear him more to her. They stay there for a while, Rayna nearly dozing off on his shoulder.

He can feel her drifting off to sleep, and carefully slides her down the couch, tucking the blanket around her as he lets go. Her eyes open a little, and he gently kisses her forehead before standing up. "Asprin's in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom, if you want to clear out early tomorrow morning."

And he switches off the lights.

* * *

THE WEATHERMAN ON TV said a storm was coming and it's late, oh so stupidly late to be out. On the drive over, her unfortunate encounter with Teddy earlier that day kept replaying in her mind, the pure loathing his voice as he yelled "Because if you can't live happily ever after with your tortured drunk, then screw anyone else who manages to make it work." The fact that he didn't even have the decency to thank her for bringing over his crap that she took the time to sort out was infuriating, but the way he awkwardly hugged her and whispered "let it go," in her ear before she fled from his apartment still makes her skin crawl hours later. The residue of her hangover only makes it worse.

She pushes the lock on her car key, and checks her make-up in the reflection of the window before slinging her purse over her shoulder. The 'for sale' sign is gone from the front yard, yet another knee-jerk reaction that came to nothing. Her mother was right all those years ago when she warned her that people never change, only their surroundings. What her mother would make of her now…

She still appears in her dreams sometimes, an abstract figure passing through a room, a nameless guest at the dinner table. The image has yellowed over time, and the sound of her voice has long gone, but for one brief moment as she makes her way up the steps to Deacon's front door, she could swear she sees her there in the corner of her eye, auburn hair silently blowing in the breeze. Rayna turns her head, but nobody's there of course, just a discarded paper bag rolling across a neighbor's drive.

She presses the doorbell and waits, twirling her keychain around on her finger. The door opens.

"Hi. I found your record," she says, clutching the faded old sleeve in front of her with both hands.

A flash of recognition crosses Deacon's face. "I thought you'd have used that as a Frisbee long ago."

She shakes her head.

"It's a great album, a forgotten classic," he tells her, and she thinks he's told her that before.

She looks down at the scuff on her boots before glancing up at him and asking, "But that's not why you gave it to me, is it?"

He only stares blankly back at her, still startled by her unexpected arrival at this hour of the day.

"Are you gonna make me stand out here all night, or can I come in?" she inquires. "My photo is in great demand these days, especially outside your door."

"Shit. Yeah." He waves her in. "Dump your stuff on the chair or wherever."

She moves his guitar out of the way, and tosses her jacket and bag down, shoves her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans. The surroundings make her feel out of place somehow. Nothing's really changed in all these years, a pristine time capsule of memories. Every scratch in the hardwood floor, every stain on the coffee table, if she thought long enough, she could probably say how each one had happened.

"You okay? " he asks. "You look a little… lost."

Rayna glances up from the tear in the rug. The rug on which- "Yeah, fine, just..."

"Don't give me 'fine'. I'm not your publicist."

"I thought you were done talking," she deadpans. "Honestly? I've been better."

"There. That wasn't so hard."

"Easy for you to say."

He reaches over as if to touch her arm, only to notice her engagement ring still sparkling on her finger. Old habits sure die hard. "Can I get you a drink?" he offers instead.

"You got any coke? Coca Cola, I mean, not-" She puts her face in her hands.

Her embarrassment is charming, and he's not seen her wear it in a while. Not in front of him, anyway. "Sure. Diet?"

"Real sugar if you've got it," she says with a sigh. "Lord knows I need it."

Deacon smiles at her, utterly devoid of judgment, and she realizes that's it's the first time that someone has understood what she was trying to say all day.

She follows him into the kitchen. While he sets about getting glasses and ice and a bottle opener, she hops up onto the counter. From where she's sitting, the view looks like home.

He kicks the refrigerator door shut with his foot. "If you're having to explain that you mean soda instead of drugs, you've been spending way too much time with bad boys, Ray."

She ignores him and passes him the bottle opener, noticing that there still is only 'real soda' at Deacon's house. And rituals of opening bottles aside, he's right that Coke does always taste better from glass bottles.

"I remember when you used to be able to do that with a lighter," she muses.

"What?"

"Open bottles. I remember you opening bottles with a lighter. One time you slipped and almost needed stitches on your knuckle."

Deacon passes her a glass, and collects his own as well as the two other bottles. "Still have the scar to prove it," he says as he's halfway out the kitchen door.

Rayna unceremoniously slides down off the counter and follows him back to the living room. She notices the large lamp on the side table. She's pretty sure it was hers, once.

Deacon settles on the couch with his drink, while she perches on the coffee table out of habit. He bought that couch when his first song got cut, back when he was fresh out of Berklee and she was the go-to demo singer in town. And those boots he's wearing, she notes, have been resoled six times.

Deacon drums his fingers about in an abstract pattern on a cushion as if he's playing the piano. "Seriously now," he asks her, still focused on his imaginary keys, "how've you been holding up?"

"Oh, you know me. Crying. Drinking too much. Eating too much ice cream. I am my own worst songs' cliché." She pulls her shoes off and kicks them across the floor.

"And the girls?"

"I don't want to talk about it. I really don't."

"So you're here at nearly midnight because…?"

Rayna pushes the hem of his jeans up with her toes. "I wanted to sit on the roof of our old house in Edgefield, and yours is the closest I'm gonna get."

"Oh you are a cliché tonight."

"And you've got song-writer's block," she says, nodding her head in the direction of his fidgeting fingers.

They sit in silence for a while, listening to the storm as it begins to pick up and rattle the windows. Many years ago, when they were playing a small club somewhere in the Mid-West, the tornado sirens went off in the middle of a concert. She can hear her nervous laughter as she suggested they'd better all head for cover, see Deacon quietly walking off the stage, his guitar still slung over his shoulder, as if this kind of thing happened every week. He dragged her with him, and when everyone was safe in the storm shelter, they continued the concert down there. No mikes, just she and him and their audience camped out on the floor, singing _Goodnight Irene _and _Silver Threads and Golden Needles_ while they waited for the storm to pass them by. It missed them by just a few miles, and when they emerged, Deacon slapped her back and said, "Tonto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore", while she tried not to cry in front of everybody.

Deacon looks up at her, and their eyes meet, bringing her back to reality with a jolt. She's probably been staring at him the whole of her trip down memory lane.

She places her empty glass on the table, on top of the burn mark caused by a joint back in the nineties. Quietly, she stands up, moves his legs out of her way, and walks to her bag on the chair. Deacon observes her carefully pull the record out of its sleeve and hold it up in his direction. "For old times?"

He shrugs his shoulders, and points towards the turntable. It's not quite the reaction she had expected.

She puts it on, B-side up, and places the needle down near enough to the right track. Of course she knows why he gave it to her. She settles down on the floor next to the record player and listens to the stylus click over to the next song.

_You took my little heart. You ran it round this town. Now you're gonna find your circus needs a brand new clown. And I don't mind playin' any time. You all can get me drunk. But, baby, I'm sober now…_

"I sure was passive-aggressive back then," he sighs, defeated.

She throws her head back and laughs unapologetically at him. "Understatement of the century, right there. You kissed me and I pushed you away, do you remember? And then you gave it to me a week later after a show and said it was a belated wedding present, and we were on tour, so I had to wait two whole weeks until I could listen to it. And then, two-thirds of the way through, I heard this and…" She pauses for a moment to widen her eyes a little to keep her emotions sufficiently in-check. "I knew."

"You ignored me for a month."

"You got off easy," she assures him, her voice betraying her smile with a trace of bitterness. Yet somehow she loves that this was the best way he could think of saying 'fuck you'- with a record. She doesn't tell him that she cried when she first heard it, or how that was the first moment she really questioned having married Teddy; it wouldn't do any good. Instead, she pulls at his hand that's now hanging in her direction over the arm of the couch, and beckons him to join her on the floor. He gives in easily and settles down next to her, their backs against the side of the chair.

"Liam forced me to watch old videos of our Crossroads set yesterday."

"I loved hearing you sing _The Road_."

"That was always about us, too, I guess."

He lets out a weary sigh and places his hand on her knee. "All the messed up songs are."

"Rock n' roll, baby, you and me."

She runs her fingers over the tear in the rug, the stiletto dent still there in the floor after all this time.

"We get to time-travel in five minutes," she muses, pointing to the time glowing on the DVD player. "Well, not really, but, you know, in theory we do."

"I prefer the fall, when you get a do-over. One hour where you can do whatever you want, because you get to live the same hour over again."

"One hour is a good length of time," she agrees. "Not too short. Not too long that it becomes weird and life-changing."

"We should try that," he says, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, trying not to be too obvious while taking a hit of the scent of her perfume. She doesn't move.

"What?"

"Relive an hour together," he says into her neck.

She leans into him, turns her head and asks, "What? And see if we don't screw both of them up?" and he can feel her breath on his cheek.

"Maybe."

Rayna reaches across to the table to grab another bottle of soda. Wriggling away from him a little, she whacks the corner of the bottle cap on the edge of the table to open it. It falls on the floor by his feet and he picks it up in amazement. "Still one of the guys, huh, Ray?"

She takes a self-satisfied swig before holding the bottle up to his lips. "You taught me good," she grins. "Look!" Rayna waves a well-manicured finger in the direction of the DVD player. The clock ticks over to midnight.

Without hesitating, she takes the bottle away from him, and kisses him like she'd planned this moment from the second she walked in the door; a kiss goodbye, a kiss for luck, a kiss for old time's sake.

As they both fall back onto the side of the armchair, his knee knocks the bottle over, its sticky contents spilling onto the rug. They both choose to ignore it, and when their kiss has digressed into a hug, Rayna notices that it's spilled all over the record sleeve.

She pulls away from him and opens her mouth to say something, but he places his index finger across her lips. "Save that thought for the fall."

~* fin.


End file.
